Boy 'targeted because of what he looked like and what neighborhood he was walking in,' sheriff says

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Twelve-years old and big for his age, Brown was so excited to play football. Money was the problem, a problem the 12-year-old had solved with sweat.

He cut grass around his Skyway neighborhood to pay the registration fee his parents, though both employed, couldn't quite cover. He picked up his brother's chores around the house to get enough together to buy the cleats, a sale pair he'd found at Wal-Mart.

April 29 was the day he bought those shoes. It should have been a good day for the boy.

Instead it was his last.

Brown was shot to death a block from his home in the Cedar Village Apartments, at 6240 S. 129th St. The alleged gunman didn't know him; in a perverse twist on the usual use of stereotypes, prosecutors claim the shooter looked at the boy and saw a gangster like himself, killed him for being young and black and too close to the scene of a shooting.

In a naked attempt to draw attention to a child killing that may have been missed, in part, because of the assumptions made when a children who look like Brown are gunned down, King County Sheriff Sue Rahr joined Prosecutor Dan Satterberg in announcing charges against Brown's alleged killer, a 35-year-old repeat felon named Curtis John Walker.

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"It's easy to get complacent. It's easy to say this is just another case of gang violence," Rahr said.

"This wasn't a stray bullet," Rahr continued. "He was targeted because of what he looked like and what neighborhood he was walking in."

Rahr and Satterberg took pains to thank the investigators and witnesses that paved the way for charges against Walker, singling out the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab technicians who matched Walker's DNA to cells found on the gun used in the killing. A King County detective investigating the case also noted the Department of Corrections officers who helped track Walker down after he was identified as a suspect and facilitated his May 14 arrest.

In the minutes before what Satterberg called "a fatal case of mistaken identity" played out at a Skyway 7-Eleven, violence had come to the Cedar Village Apartments.

A personal disagreement among several gang-involved men devolved into gunfire. One man, a friend of Walker's, took a bullet in the groin and another in the shoulder.

The shooters fled. Walker, his wife and an associate pursued, and came across Brown.

Carrying his new cleats in a white shopping bag, Brown hopped off the bus at 12848 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. heading for the home he wouldn't reach.

Surveillance video at the nearby 7-Eleven showed the boy walking from the bus, sheriff's Detective Raphael Crenshaw said in court documents. Brown walks from the camera's view, then is seen falling to the ground in front of the store.

A .38-caliber bullet fired from a revolver killed the boy. Shot in the back, he died at the scene.

Announcing the first-degree murder charges now filed against Walker, Satterberg said the boy's killing called for "equal parts outrage and heartbreak." "We lost a young child in a senseless act," Satterberg said. "We should never tolerate the killing of any child in any neighborhood for any reason."

Brown's family had recently come to the area from Texas, hoping to find economic opportunity and a better life. The boy's violent, senseless death came as a shock and, Satterberg said, "cried out for justice."

At a vigil days after her son's killing, Ayanna Brown asked the hundred or so gathered to help find Alajawan's killer.

"My baby is gone and I'll never get him back," she said at the May 5 vigil. "I have his memory though, and I bless God for that. … I thank God for the 12 years of memories and laughter that I do have of him."

Through the investigation, detectives determined Walker fled the scene in a 15-year-old Cadillac Seville, Crenshaw told the court. The car's driver, attempting to race away, drove into another sedan and continued to flee.

A witness to the hit-and-run crash followed the two men to 2985 Naches Ave. S.W. in Renton, where the driver left the car and ran into a grassy field nearby. The man returned and drove from the scene.

Assisted by a security officer at a nearby Bank of America who'd watched the commotion on a surveillance camera, a Renton police officer recovered three pistols hidden in the field.

In the weeks that followed, investigators flew to Louisiana to contact one key witness. Crenshaw told the court the man fingered Walker for the shooting; he told the detective Walker's goal was payback for his injured friend.

"Curtis stated something similar to, 'this is on the Bloods,"' the detective said in court documents. "(He) took this to mean that if anyone talked they would be killed."

Court records show that Walker had made similar threats against others shortly before he landed in prison on charges filed in 2005.

Prior to receiving a 2½-year prison sentence, Walker admitted to gun and drug charges. Prosecutors had asked that Walker receive a five-year term; the King County Superior Court judge on the case opted for an alternative sentence requiring Walker undergo drug treatment in exchange for a 50 percent reduction in the sentence.

During the underlying offense, Walker threatened one witness and described himself as "a contract killer," according to court documents. "You need to leave before I kill you," Walker was alleged to have told a woman, now his wife, whom he wanted to borrow money from. "I'm a contract killer and I'm giving you a chance to leave."

After prison, Walker failed to live up to his obligations, according to court documents. He tested positive for cocaine and failed to take a domestic violence awareness class, prompting a Department of Corrections officer to note that "Mr. Walker has not shown any responsibilities for his actions."

By contrast, Rahr described Brown and his family as people who'd set out to do right in the world.

"His family is like my family," the sheriff said Thursday. "Mom and dad are working. They're trying to instill good morals and a strong work ethic. …

"He could have been any one of our kids."

Walker remains confined at the Washington State Corrections Center in Shelton on a parole violation. He is expected to be returned to King County Jail in coming days; if convicted as charged, he faces 35 to 45 years in prison.